City Council - Regular Meeting

Next to Denise is Councilman Gary Daniel. Next to Gary is Councilman Dean Lytle. And on the far left is our city manager, Wilson Hooper. With that, I would like to ask Reverend Bob Ren Jillian, did I get that right, Bob? Do I? You always get it right. Reverend Bob is with the Unitarian Universalists of Transylvania County, and he is going to give us our invocation tonight.

Amen. Reverend Bob, would you tell us a little bit about the Unitarian Universalist Church?

Thank you. We are so glad to have the UUTC here and all of the things you do, all of the way that you are so inclusive for our community. And I love that interfaith Thanksgiving that we have every year. Thank you. I'm so glad. It's very special. So thank you. If everyone would please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

All right. Council, you have the draft agenda. Are there any proposed modifications to the agenda? Do I have a motion to approve the agenda? Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? Agenda is approved. Council, you have the draft minutes of the August 3rd, 2026 regular meeting. Do I have any corrections or modifications to the minutes? Do I have a motion to approve the minutes? So moved. Do I have a second?

Okay, we have no certificates or awards today, so we will go straight into public comments. The public is invited to speak during public comment. At this time on any topic unless it is a public hearing item on the agenda. And we have one public hearing item on fats, oils, and grease. So if you wanted to talk about fats, oils, and grease, you need to sign up on the other sign-up sheet. I can't tell because some people didn't put a topic by your name. Okay, anyone who wants to speak must register with the city clerk, which is the sign-up sheet. When it is your turn, step to the podium in front o

Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Carol Haman.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Dawn Ellis. We'll wait just a minute, see if we can get this resolved.

All right. Shut the door. All right. Sorry about that. All right. Dawn, go ahead. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Gardner. Our next speaker is Rodney Locks.

Thank you, Mr. Locks. Our next speaker is Jimmy Veal.

Thank you. Our next speaker is... Ken Haynes, did I get that right? It's hard to read. Oh, I guess I got it. Oh, okay, so you are on the other sheet. Okay, all right, we're gonna move you to the other sheet. Oh, okay, all right, so he's on the other sheet, okay. Our next speaker is Doug Powell.

Thank you, Mr. Powell. Our next speaker is Harvey Sankey.

Thank you, Mr. Sankey. Our next speaker is Lauren Wolf.

Thank you, Ms. Rinkle. All right, that is everybody that signed up for public comment. We will move on. Our next item is the public hearing. We have a public hearing on the proposed amendment to the City of Brevard Unified Development Ordinance, Chapter 17, and the Code of Ordinances, Chapter 70, fats, oils, and grease, or FOG, regulations. And I believe our Assistant City Manager, David Todd, is gonna walk us through the proposed changes. David?

All right. This is a public hearing. So, Council, I need a motion to officially open the public hearing. So moved. Do I have a second?

The public hearing is officially open. The public is asked to adhere to the following guidelines for the public hearing. Register with the city clerk by printing your name, address, and phone number on the sign-in sheet. When it is your turn, step to the podium in front of city council. State your name and address clearly. Be concise, avoid repetition, and limit your comments to five minutes or less. And I will give you a warning when you have 30 seconds left. direct comments to the full council not to an individual council member or to staff this is a time to provide your comments but not to

Thank you very much. Okay, that is the only person that signed up to speak. I need a motion to close the public hearing. So moved. Do I have a second?

Public hearing is closed. We will now open it for council's questions and comments. And we'll start with Mr. Lytle.

Thanks for presentation, it was very, very clear. Do we know how many, and obviously restaurants would be sort of the largest sort of need for this. Do we know how many, businesses might be in an area of sort of non-compliance that might need additional equipment or care with their FOG. Do you have any idea?

How many of those might be in noncompliance? Okay. Right, okay. And in terms of enforcement, would it be like, you know, what are we putting in place, you know, if there's a smaller business that, you know, is attempting to comply, right? They're going through those motions, they're working towards distinguishing them between someone who is ignoring. how are we supposedly handling those two scenarios or do those two look the same if they both are not complying?

Great, and just to comment about, I love the fact that we're educating first, communicating first before we move to penalty. I think that's really, really important. Also, I love giving options for contractors or resources and providing that. And I would just say I would double down on overcommunication. I think I saw that we're planning to go out twice a year with a flyer, why not quarterly at first, to just really overcommunicate. That's the only thing that I saw that I would suggest. Thank you, that's all.

Yeah, I serve on the Public Works Committee with Mr. Wise and I think he would agree that that was a remarkably clear and succinct presentation. Thank you. There's a lot of work, a lot of reading to do on this if you're interested in that. But I do think it does address the issue clearly and it does bring us into state compliance that is required by law that we meet. And I also think that our staff has gone to great extremes to communicate with the public and the businesses of what and why we're doing what we're doing. So thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Council. Any additional questions? All right. There is no action on this tonight. Thank you, Mr. Todd. This will come back for a vote at a later meeting.

All right. We will move on. We have the consent and information agenda. The following items are on the consent agenda. One, the tax settlement report of July, 2026. Two, ordinance declaring road closure for Brevard Plain Air Festival and Halloween Fest. three reaffirming resolution city of brevard official depositories four downtown master plan committee meeting minutes june 10th of 2026 five public works and utilities committee meeting minutes july 1st 2026 Six, housing committee meeting minutes July 14th of 2026. Council, do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda?

Consent is approved. Moving on to new business. The first item is to consider updates to the Brevard-Davidson River Presbyterian Church lease amendment for LMI housing. And I believe City Manager Mr. Hooper is going to open this.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Manager. Excuse me, sir. This is not a public discussion right now. I'm going to move for council to ask questions, so please. I'm going to open this up for council questions and comments before I ask for any type of motion on this. We will start with Mr. Weiss.

Well, as has been stated by everyone, the housing crisis is dire in this area. A lot of the issues, understandable concerns that folks have raised. that those concerns are gonna be addressed because by law they have to be. They won't be able to put this in without addressing water. They won't be able to build this without a solid foundation. The other point as well is that, and I always try to point this out, is if you look at French Broad Terrace, Broad River Terrace, excuse me, That's what we're talking about. Well cared for, nice housing, responsible people, people you would see every day,

Well, you know, construction was my career when I was working. And I did build a building, about an 8,000 square foot building. on water is still standing and being used well. We dig the footings, they fill up with water. There's technology to address that, and it's sound improving technology. So I just put that out there, but again, our need is dire. We need housing.

Yeah, I for one am no expert at land development and because of that I'd really like to see what the ideas are and see what the options are. One thing I'd like to say as well is I think that There sometimes is a confusion about what low and moderate income actually means. I just looked it up. According to HUD, for Western North Carolina, one person that means at low income is making over $43,000 a year. Moderate income going up to $65,000. So these are folks that have jobs. These are folks that are looking for homes for their kids. And so we need to make sure that we do the best we can to acco

Thank you, Mr. Lytle. All right, council, do I have a motion to authorize the city manager to sign and execute a lease extension as discussed?

All right, pick one. Any further discussion? Anybody before we vote?

Okay. I was going to do that separately, Mr. Manager. Right now we just have a motion to extend the contract. Then we'll get to the noncompetitive process. Okay. All in favor? Opposed? Okay. City Manager, you have the authority to extend the contract to June 2030. Council, the second thing that Manager is asking is whether or not you are authorizing him to go forward with a non-competitive process.

Okay, we'll open it for discussion. Mr. Daniel?

I'd like to say that because this is a difficult site and you have a contractor who is prepared to move forward, I would like to be able to take advantage of that if that proves to be the best way to move forward.

And I just want to be clear. So with your suggestion about going to DFI and getting their opinion about whether or not to go ahead and investigate, that's something that you're just asking for the thumbs up to do. yes sir okay and so this would you know this is more about if you were to come back I just want to make sure I understand if you were to come back it would be a non-competitive process or not is that is that the motion as I understand it that's my understanding yes okay can you reiterate it just can you reiterate just again the disadvantage of a competitive process in this case versu

Any other questions? All right. We have a motion and a second. All in favor?

Opposed? Nay. That was four ayes and one nay. Motion passes. Okay. We have a couple more items. I think we will take a five-minute break and then come back. So five minutes. We will move on to our next item, which is the proposed remote participation policy for appointed boards and committees. And our city clerk is going to talk about this.

All right. I will open it up for questions or comments. Mr. Lytle.

No questions. I'm on this committee. I think it gives a good balance of some flexibility while ensuring that most of the vast majority of meetings are in person and ensures that the quasi-judicial boards are handled differently.

I'm a little concerned about the vote only counting if it's non-determinative. Sort of begs the question of why vote. You're either voting for it or you're not voting at all.

Okay, that's what I wasn't clear on, I guess. But otherwise, you would vote on the other committee. You would vote and your vote would count. Okay. Yes, sir.

All right. Do I have a motion to approve the remote participation policy?

Opposed? Policy is approved. All right, we will move on to our last item of new business, and that is the renaming of the Downtown Master Plan Committee to the Downtown Master Plan Implementation and Downtown Advisory Committee. And Mr. Daniel, who is the chair of that committee, will present this.

Well, the Downtown Master Plan Committee has a downtown master plan. Staff, David and others have worked with Melanie Spring, Spring, excuse me, to develop a pretty detailed and broken down plan for how to proceed, or guidebook of how to proceed. This change would make the title of this committee action forward by saying the Downtown Master Plan Implementation Committee. And as the mayor and other members of the committee pointed out, we do other things as well that are involved with the Downtown Advisory Committee. and that's why it's such a long title, is to clarify that this downtown master

Do I have a motion to approve the resolution renaming the Downtown Master Plan Committee?

Okay. Any comments or questions? Mr. Wise.

I would just say it's a good opportunity to double down on the implementation part. And so it would be great to have a implementation dashboard that's public so we can really keep track and really, really focus on that portion.

All right. We have a motion and a second. All in favor? Opposed? The committee has a new name. All right, and that is the end of new business. We are on remarks and future agenda considerations. And we will start with Ms. Holder.

I would like to just thank the deputy chief and chase Owen and Mr. McKellar for handling the situation that we had earlier in our meeting. The compassion that was shown to that individual I think should hopefully assuage some of the concerns that folks have had about the recent ordinances that we adopted to deal with disruptive behavior. It made me sad, but I was happy to see how we, as our city representatives, dealt with that situation. So thank you to all of you.

I have no further comments tonight. Thank you.

Oh, yes. How could we forget? Madam Clerk. Nothing for me, thanks.

Thank you, Mr. Manager. And I just want to close by thanking staff for, again, a lot of really hard and really great work and lots of different topics on fog, on housing. And one of the things that... is really obvious when you look at brevard in terms of housing is that we have so many projects we are not trying one solution but we are what we have realized is this crisis is doesn't have a single solution it will be solved by looking at different options in different places and working creatively in a collaborative environment with a lot of our partners Every quarter we have a meeting of all